Go Green & Get Healthy

by Blake Herzog

Adopting eco-conscious habits is becoming more urgent than ever, not just for the planet but also for your health.

The sooner you adopt a healthy lifestyle the more time you have to recoup the benefits as they pile up. The sooner you choose to begin taking steps to reduce the waste and greenhouse gas your household is responsible for the more it’ll benefit the environment and reduce the effects of climate change.

You have many more options beyond these four to begin leading a healthier life that’s also more sustainable for the Earth, but these are some of the most fundamental shifts with the biggest impact:

MEAL PLANNING

Where do we begin? Mapping out and shopping for your meals ahead of time helps you stick with whatever way of eating you have chosen to keep your brain, heart and everything else in tip-top shape.

Knowing what recipes you’re going to use makes it easier to buy food in bulk to reduce packaging. It also makes it less tempting to take the “easy” way out with fast or ultraprocessed food, which make things harder in the long run by adding to pollution and waste while causing inflammation throughout your body.

VEGAN/FLEXITARIAN DIET

The upsides of a plantbased diet for people and our planet are well established by now. Such a diet cuts down on the amount of fossil fuel and other nonrenewable resources required to produce food.

A diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, beans and legumes is the nearuniversal recommendation for maintaining good health and avoiding heart disease, diabetes and other chronic conditions.

If you aren’t ready to adopt a meatless diet, take a more flexitarian approach to your eating by reducing your consumption of animal products and choosing locally sourced, grass-fed meat sources as much as possible when you do eat it.

WALKING/RUNNING/ BICYCLING

This is another area where the dual benefits of taking action are easy to pinpoint. It’s a lot easier to net the recommended 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise recommended weekly and slash our fossil fuel consumption when we’re using our feet to get wherever we’re going.

Using public transportation, when available, generally requires some foot transportation that will help reduce our blood pressure, speed our metabolism and do other wondrous things for us while reducing our dependence on polluting, expensive gasoline.

DIY CLEANING SOLUTIONS

Most commercial cleaning fluid bottles don’t list their ingredients because they’re not required to. It’s difficult to know which ones contain compounds that can harm the ecosystem inside you and the one around you, including airpolluting volatile organic compounds and hormone disruptors like phthalates.

Try making your own cleaners, air fresheners, carpet stain remover, grout cleaner and laundry detergent with vinegar, baking soda, borax, hydrogen peroxide and other natural, easy-tofind components.